Shōhei Imamura directs Ken Ogata, Mayumi Ogawa and Rentarō Mikuni in this thriller following a true life Japanese con man and serial killer – his life, crimes and loves – while the official manhunt closes in on him. 

Vengeance is Mine starts as a procedural but becomes slightly unhinged by inexplicable visual similes as it reaches its inevitable conclusion. There’s lots of sex, even more shocking unrequited desires and a fair slice of violence. Suprisingly though, after the bloody initial attack the murders move to the background and become matter of fact. It is the uncontrollable emotions – lust and seduction and mercy and understanding- that seem like the aberrations. Ken Ogata is a fantastic chameleon in this. Some scenes he is a affable ingratiating impression of a regular man, others the cold blooded killer and others still a thuggish, ego driven brute. Always convincing no matter what persona he chooses to wear. Maybe the point is we’ll never truly understand a human – their actions can be wildly contradictory, their history may suggest a pattern of cause and effect for their behaviour but that cannot definitively dictate how they’ll always relate to the other individuals they have to exist with.

9

 

Lynne Ramsey directs Joaquin Phoenix, Ekaterina Samsonov and Judith Anna Roberts in the neo-noir where an Iraq vet works as a gun for hire, tracking down missing teens and exacting “brutal” vengeance on their abusers.

An unmissable mood piece funnelled through the eyes of a broken vigilante, this is the unkempt son of Taxi Driver, the New York cousin of Drive and the arthouse bastard of Taken. Ramsey finds her beauty in the grimness, Phoenix gets physical in a near-silent turn with a mundane exactness, Johnny Greenwood’s schizophrenic score pushes us stumbling down fire escapes we don’t want to be on. Do you really want to know more before watching?

8

Terry Jones directs Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and John Cleese in this spoof of biblical epics following the man born in the manger next to Jesus. 

Not my favourite Python, lacking the hilarity of The Holy Grail and the uncontainable scale of The Meaning of Life. I smile knowingly whenever I watch Life of Brian yet it rarely gets me laughing. I don’t think it has anything to do with me being raised a Catholic, the humor is just a bit too obvious yet somehow snobbish. The live action Christmas Card opening sequence, in which Brian is born in a manger next door to Joseph and Mary’s, is very beautiful until John Cleese in black face arrives (trans sensitive people also be aware, there’s stuff that’s “of its time” for you too) and the credit sequence has a satisfying Bondian excess. Terry Gilliam’s fingerprints are embedded deep into these moments unsurprisingly. And the classic closing musical number of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” sung by a chorus of crucified chaps is a pleasing topper to a joke that long ran its course 30 minutes earlier. The production values are higher than most comedies, and there is an irascibility to the amount of targets the Oxbridge players takes wild shots at. In fact, the movie works better as a satire on political movements and rebellions, rather than the Jesus story. Palin’s conciliatory and sympathetic crucifixion administrator is the highlight in the cast.

7

Brian Taylor directs Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair and Anne Winters in this exploitation horror where an epidemic causes parents across the US to slaughter their kids. 

Average horror – the threat while sustained never escalates, the creepy moments never spin off into the unexpected. Like The Purge movies this takes a fetid high concept and explores it glossily but with hints at a wider, more intriguing picture not fully explored. We get unsettling shots of fathers glaring through the glass at a New Born ward’s incubator unit, another dad coldly justifying his murder to news reporters with a shrug and Lance Henriksen showing up briefly as a demented grandpops. In all honesty there’s much to like. Cage, though absent for a lot of the first half, goes full pelt on screen, giving his most satisfying turn since Bad Lieutenant. Blair plays with subtler shades in her acting paintbox and delivers as quite the eye-catching lead. The monsters are made human, while never losing their transgressive fun. The opening credits lovingly sell us a grindhouse extravaganza. It is a bit too reductive in scale and taste to live up to that promise. But its bloody heart is in the right place. If anything Mom and Dad reminds me of VHS treats like They Live or Parents. Movies that never really keep to the word of their batshit promise yet settle in the nostalgia banks happily as ‘a great movie’ for the next couple of decades… classics as long as they don’t have to endure the scrutiny of being rewatched too often. Some movies’ elements are so enticing that their cult legacy is guaranteed, it doesn’t really matter that they don’t fully hit their marks when actually being enjoyed.

6

George Stevens directs Max Von Sydow, David McCallum and Telly Savalas in this gargantuan biblical epic recreating the life of Jesus Christ.

Stodgy and turgid and pious but with shards of large scale gorgeousness poking through the funereal worthiness. It is a great story but not when told sloooooooooooowwwwwwlllyyyy like this. Donald Pleasance manages to be really creepy as the devil pretending to be a hermit in a cave, tempting honky Jesus while he gnaws on some bloody bones. But then they overuse him in returning cameos. Save yourself a day and watch Mel’s exploitation nasty The Passion of The Christ instead.

4

 

Woody Allen directs Kate Winslet, Juno Temple and Justin Timberlake in this period melodrama about a Coney Island love rectangle. 

Often very beautiful, you’ve never seen red hair so gorgeously backlit. But that’s about that. Squawking sub Woody Allen cliches from Woody, an over theatricality smothers the acting. Juno Temple somehow walks away with her head held high, the normally perfect Kate Winslet comes off the poorest with a poisoned chalice of a role. A whole lotta nothing.

4

 

 

Sebastián Lelio directs Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes and Aline Küppenheim in this drama about a transgender singer who faces scorn and discrimination after the sudden death of her older boyfriend.

A gripping drama of a transitioning woman following the death of her older lover. The bereavement is richly mined, grieving is a time when anyone can be thrown into uncomfortable close proximity with the deceased’s other loved ones and the authorities. A time when you have no choice but to interact with strangers outside your bubble. It can be a period, as presented here, when heartless power struggles over property and funeral arrangements can become cruel, where others feelings can be wantonly dismissed. So putting Daniela Vega‘s stoic and hyperaware Marina into this milieu creates ample opportunity for us to experience a consistent mistrust, belittling and prejudice from people who have made no effort to acknowledge her for who she is. This can range from the hospital staff busily not knowing how to deal with her, to the police’s automatic assumption the lovers’ relationship was less than caring, to the family’s outright hostility toward any interaction with Marina during their grieving process. Sounds like heavy stuff… and it often is. There is one moment of physical intimidation that is particularly psychologically gruelling, to the point where Lelio’s camera pans around to the original instigator, catching the regret and sympathy in his eyes at the torture he has caused. And it can be bludgeoning watching every conversation Marina has be laced with a casual unwillingness to accept her as who she presents herself as, magnified by the loss she is processing alone. While critically acclaimed by the straight / cisgendered press (of which I guess I am) I have read some rejection of the film from the trans community. It has a white male cisgendered director so therefore ‘could never be more than a narrow approximation of a transgendered life’. It uses visual cliches involving mirrors that many find hurtfully unsubtle. It doesn’t specifically represent their experiences, reactions and feelings. To that last criticism, surely no film ever can. We are all unique and there can be no such thing as a DNA exactitude when it comes to representation. The lauded Call Me By Your Name is emotionally true to many gays and straights… even if you have never spent your summers reading the classics with servants. The movie protagonists I personally identify the most with come from another continent, work different jobs, have criminal records and have different relationship status than me. Manchester By the Sea and Good Will Hunting, if you care… the latter directed by an openly gay man. Where A Fantastic Woman succeeds is in making an universally accessible showcase for a restrained yet affecting central turn from Daniela Vega. As we grow to care so much about Marina we can see what needs to change in society and ourselves. It may have been delivered (in part) by someone who is not part of your community but maybe that is why, flawed as it may be for a minority, it can be enjoyed by many others. There are staggering moments of visual lyricism. Some very much  on the nose like those mirrors… an uphill struggle against a wind machine, for example. Others pure jubilant fantasy… a dance sequence where Marina takes flight right into our faces. The farcical shock of Almodovar punctures the final act. The luxurious day to day lifestyle of the soon to be passed Orlando has the refined decadence of a Felini or a Paolo Sorrentino sequence. There is a low key heist setpiece near the end where Marina has to traverse a set of gendered locker room that reminded me of Victoria. And the finale, when grief and others’ undermining Marina are left behind and she gets to be on stage, singing opera, defined by her talents and passion, not her gender, is stunning piece of cinematic punctuation. The proof in the pudding as to whether A Fantastic Woman has worked beyond its own artistic targets will be whether cinema finds a long term home for the superlative Daniela Vega. Three decades ago, Hollywood struggled to know what to do with Jaye Davidson after The Crying Game. Let’s not make the same mistake twice.

8

Warwick Thornton directs Hamilton Morris, Sam Neill and Bryan Brown in this Australian ‘western’ where an aboriginal man and his wife go on the run in the outback after defending themselves against a murderous white settler.

This is a bit too brutal, a bit too preachy and a bit too self determined as tragic to enjoy as a genre experience. Which is frustrating as the best moments are the more traditional gunplay, tracking and kangaroo courtroom sequences. The meat and potatoes you’d expect from a revisionist western essentially. When it overstretches for prestige’s sake, it bores. The unsubtly of the metaphors chipping away at the natural performances and stunning location work. There is a nice fractured temporality to the editing; we often glimpse characters’ eventual fates when we first meet them. And once we get deep into the desert the imagery has a fantasy inspiring delirium that stays with you. Shame it is so often violently overwrought, as all enjoyability is sapped from it due to this.

6

Max Ophüls directs Joan Bennett, James Mason and Geraldine Brooks in this thriller where a middle class mother becomes embroiled in murder and blackmail. 

Possibly the sunniest, least hardboiled noir from the key period. Which is not to say it doesn’t churn up adequate amounts of sleaze and oppressision for its lead to navigate. The difference is instead of a gumshoe, a moll or a down on his luck shmoe we have a prim and proper housewife caught unwittingly in the shadows. Joan Bennett essays a woman who finds out how little freedom she has once the underworld puts the squeeze on her. Though wealthy, she has little access to money without her husband’s authorisation. Though independent, she has little privacy in her home or community to engage in conversation or travel without question being asked and her movements noted. Still, she shows steely resolve in her interactions with her malefactors. She focuses on keeping her daughter safe, her husband’s name unblemished while trying to find a solution to her ever worsening problems. All the while not even realising that her racketeer is falling for her, trying to find his own way out for her, and wistfully himself, on realising he has put the muscle on to someone uncommonly decent. Mason plays this tarnished rogue touchingly. Ophüls frames and lights it all imaginatively, often beautifully. When the tragedy comes, it is affecting but neat.

8

Jonathan Levine directs Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer and John Malkovich in this zombie meets girl romantic comedy.  

A pleasant surprise exceeding all my low expectations. The romance is sweetly and swiftly laid out, the chase sequences are the work of someone who understands terror and the comedy is light yet sharp. I’m no fan of Palmer, and here she carries on her jerky blend of dead eyed prettiness and gurning over emoting that irritates me so. Hoult though is becoming a genre stalwart. He can do big (see Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road) and he can do restrained (see his Beast in the current X-Men phase), here he somehow does both. Convincingly dead yet full of charm.

7